Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is following Project Lean with a second request for an eight-week time commitment from the business community, this time in the form of internships under the newly created TeenWork Detroit program.

"The unemployment rate is 50 percent for Detroit teens," Duggan told the audience at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference last week. "These kids don't have jobs, and they don't know people their age who have jobs."

The Detroit City Council has allocated $3 million from previous block grant awards to fund the program, and the city will pay up to half of each teen's summer employment.

The Skillman Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will assist with funding and have co-organized TeenWork Detroit with the city, along with Detroit Employment Solutions Corp. The DESC plans to assist in connecting students to jobs, along with City Connect Detroit.

Still needed are donations from businesses in the form of internships that do not require matching funds. The goal is to hire 5,000 youths for eight weeks next summer at about $2,000 a teen, for a total of $10 million.

Detroit-based Franco Public Relations Group and PracticeSpace, an incubator and residency program, have already expressed interest in participating.